Page 31 of Wrecked By You
“Ah.” A broad grin spread across his face, and two dimples popped, giving him a boyish look that belied his middle age. “That’s all taken care of. Mr. Kingcaid gave strict instructions that all bills for Chloe’s care were to go to him.”
If a stiff breeze blew through at this moment, it’d knock me right over. Why would Johannes Kingcaid do something as compassionate as this? I should be grateful. Instead, a flush of annoyance made me grind my teeth. Damn man coming here, making out that he was going to fire me, poking around in my personal life and asking unwanted questions, then sending a doctor over to my house—Ginny’s house—to take care ofmydaughter. All he’d done was shine a light on my appalling failure as a mother.
“May I come in?”
I blinked several times in quick succession. If I let the doctor treat Chloe, then I’d be in Johannes’s debt, and powerful men like him always collected. If I turned the doctor away, I’d have to take Chloe to the ER and all the inherent risks that came with it.
My lungs crushed under the weight of an impossible choice. There was only one sensible course of action, and it was standing right in front of me.
I stood back, motioning to the doctor. “Please, come in. She’s just down the hall.”
Ginny’s eyebrows shot north when I entered Chloe’s bedroom and introduced her to Doctor Magnusson. She stared at me, questions in her eyes. I shook my head and shrugged.
Hovering like a mother hen while the doctor examined Chloe, it took Ginny’s firm hand on my arm for me to back off and give the man some space. I wasn’t a medical expert, but his examination couldn’t have been more thorough, and twenty minutes later, he snapped his bag closed and rose to his feet.
“Chloe has a nasty case of bronchitis,” he pronounced. “Nothing that a hefty dose of antibiotics won’t clear up in a few days.” He handed me a prescription. “I’ve given her a shot, just to move things along. She’s to take one of these three times a day, starting four hours from now. I’ll stop by tomorrow to see how she’s doing. Make sure she gets plenty of fluids.”
I clutched the prescription to my chest, the tension of the last twenty-four hours sliding off my shoulders like grease off a plate.
“Thank you, Doctor Magnusson.” I saw him to the door, hovering on the step while he climbed into his car and drove away.
Ginny bustled up behind me, snatching the prescription from my hand. “I’ll go get this filled. You sit with Chloe. And when I get back, you can tell me everything.”
Before I could stop her, she was halfway down the street. I closed the door and went to sit with Chloe while I waited for her to return.
Bronchitis. Thank goodness it wasn’t anything more serious. If my indecisiveness while I balanced the risk of getting treatment for Chloe with the chance of Mateo finding out our location had resulted in Chloe’s condition worsening, I’d never have forgiven myself.
I should be grateful for Johannes’s action compared to my inaction, but I couldn’t shake the creeping sense of outrage at his high-handed approach to something that was none of his business. And the more time that passed, the greater my annoyance grew.
As soon as I saw an improvement in Chloe, Mr. Bigshot and I would be having a conversation about boundaries—and recompense. Christ only knew how I’d pay the man back for a personal doctor visit, but he’d given me no other choice.
I refused to allow myself to be indebted to a man. Any man. Or under the control of one, either. Been there. Done that.
Got the mental scars to prove it.
After Ginny returned with Chloe’s antibiotics, I gave her the rundown on what Doctor Magnusson had said and how Johannes had sent him here and offered to pay for Chloe’s treatment. Ginny, who I’d come to understand was a bit of a romantic, got stars in her eyes and declared that his handling of matters that were none of his business made him some kind of prince, or a knight riding to my rescue.
At eighteen, I’d been a romantic, too. And look where that had gotten me.
No, Johannes hadn’t done this out of the goodness of his heart. He’d seek payment, one way or another. And the only way to take away his power was to refund him every single cent.
Somehow.
* * *
Two days later, with Chloe well on the road to recovery, I steered my rust bucket onto the freeway and set off for Level Nine. I hadn’t heard a peep from Johannes since I’d thrown him out of the house on Saturday morning. Not that I’d expected to.
Yet if that were true, why did I have this sense of disappointment sitting on top of my shoulders, weighing me down? And why was that feeling warring with one of impending doom when I made it clear how I felt about Johannes’s enormous overstep in sending a doctor to my home and agreeing to foot the bill?
I should let it go, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t pride that stopped me from just being grateful and accepting his gesture. My resentment went far deeper than being prideful. If I let him usurp control on this occasion, he might think it gave him carte blanche over other parts of my life, such as a right to know more about my past, or Chloe’s father. He could bring up his generosity at any moment and use it as a way of getting what he wanted.
I didn’t trust him.
I didn’t know him.
I could not allow him to have any hold over me, financial or otherwise.
He was my employer. He paid me to do a job, and I owed him my best efforts during my working hours. Nothing more. Nothing less.